In the tenth chapter of his famous work, entitled An Enquiry
concerning Human Understanding, David Hume attempts to define
the limits of philosophical enquiry. So pleased was the author
with his work
that he has placed it on record that with the "wise and learned" 
a most necessary separation, since a man may be wise without
being at all
learned, while modern science has introduced to us many of her
most famous men who, though bursting like Jack Bunsby with learning,
were far, very far from wise  his (Hume's) postulate
must be "an
everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusions". For many
years this oracular utterance was unquestioned, and Hume's apophthegm was
laid like a chloroformed handkerchief, over the mouth of every man who
attempted to discuss the phenomena of the invisible world. But a brave
Englishman and man of science  who we are proud to say accepted the
diploma of our Theosophical Society  to-wit, Alfred Russell Wallace,
F.R.S., has of late called Hume's infallibility in question. He finds two
grave defects in his proposition that a miracle is a visitation of the
laws of Nature;" since it assumes, firstly, that we know all the
laws of nature; and secondly, that an unusual phenomenon is a
miracle. Speaking deferentially, is it not after all a piece of
preposterous egotism for any living man to say what is, or rather what is
not, a law of Nature? I have enjoyed the acquaintance of
scientists who could actually repeat the names of the several parts of a
bed bug and even of a flea. Upon this rare accomplishment they plumed
themselves not a little, and took on the airs of a man of science. I have
talked with them about the laws of Nature and found that they thought
they knew enough of them to dogmatize to me about the Knowable and the
Unknowable. I know doctors of medicine, even professors, who were read up
in physiology and able to dose their patients without exceeding the
conventional average of casualties good-naturedly allowed the profession.
They have dogmatized to me about science and the laws of Nature, although
not one of them could tell me anything positive about the life of man, in
either the states of ovum, embryo, infant, adult or corpse.
The most candid medical authorities have always frankly confessed
that the
human being is a puzzle as yet unsolved and medicine "scientific
guess-work." Has ever yet a surgeon, as be stood beside a subject on the
dissecting table of the amphitheatre, dared tell his class that he knew
what life is, or that his scalpel could cut away any integumental veil so
as to lay bare the mystery? Did any modern botanist ever venture to
explain what is that tremendous secret law which makes every seed produce
the plant or tree of its own kind? Mr. Huxley and his
fellow-biologists have shown us protoplasm  the gelatinous substance
which forms the physical basis of life  and told us that it is
substantially identical in composition in plant and animal. But they can
go no farther than the microscope and spectroscope will carry them. Do
you doubt me? Then hear the mortifying confession of Professor Huxley
himself. "In perfect strictness," he says, "it is true that we know
nothing about the composition of any body whatever, as it is!" And
yet what scientist is there who has dogmatized more about the
limitations of
scientific enquiry? Do you think that, because the chemists can
dissolve for you the human body into its elementary gases and
ashes until what was once a tall man can be put into an empty
cigar-box and a large
bottle, they can help you any better to understand what that
living man really was? Ask them;  I am willing to let the case
rest upon their own
unchallenged evidence.

Science? Pshaw!
What is there worthy to wear that imperial name so long as
its most noisy representatives cannot tell us the least part
of the
mystery of man or of the nature which environs him. Let science
explain to us how the littlest blade of grass grows, or bridge
over the "abyss" which Father Felix, the great French Catholic
orator tauntingly told the Academy, existed for it in a grain
of sand, and then dogmatize as much as
it likes about the laws of Nature! In common with all heretics I
hate this presumptuous pretence, and as one who, having studied
psychology for nearly thirty years, has some right to be heard, I protest
against, and utterly repudiate, the least claim of our modern science to
know all the laws of Nature, and to say what is or what is not possible.
As for the opinions of non-scientific critics, who never informed
themselves practically about even one law of Nature, they are not worth
even listening to. And yet what a clamour they make, to be sure; how the
public ear has been assailed by the din of ignorant and conceited
criticasters. It is like being among a crowd of stockbrokers on the
exchange. Every one of the authorities is dogmatizing in his most
vociferous and impressive manner. One would think to read and hear what
all these priests, editors, authors, deacons, elders, civil and military
servants, lawyers, merchants, vestrymen and old women, and their
followers, admirers and echoing toadies have to say  that the laws of
Nature were as familiar to them as their alphabets, and that every one
carried in his pocket the combination key to the Chubb lock of the
Universe! If these people only realized how foolish they really are in
rushing in

"......
where Angels fear to tread,"

 they might somewhat abate their pretences. And if common-sense were as
plentiful as conceit, a lecture upon the Occult Sciences would be
listened to with a more humble spirit than, I am afraid, can be counted
upon in our days.

I have tried by simply calling your attention to the confessed ignorance
of our modern scientists of the nature of life, to show you that in fact
all visible phenomena are occult, or hidden from the average inquirer.
The term occult has been given to the sciences relating to the
mystical side of nature  the department of Force or Spirit. Open any
book on science or listen to any lecture or address by a modern
authority, and you will see that modern science limits its enquiry to the
visible material or physical universe. The combinations and correlations
of matter under the impulse of hidden forces, are what it studies. To
facilitate this line of enquiry, mechanical ingenuity has lent the most
marvellous assistance. The microscope has now been perfected so as to
reveal the tiniest objects in the tiny world of a drop of dew ; the
telescope brings into its field and focus glittering constellations that
 as Tom Moore poetically says 

"......
stand
Like winking sentinels upon the void
Beyond which Chaos dwells;"

the chemist's balances will weigh matter to the ten-thousandth part of a
grain, by the spectroscope the composition of all things on earth and
suns and stars is claimed to be demonstrable in the lines they make
across the spectrum, substances hitherto supposed to be elements are now
proved to be compounds and what we have imagined compounds, are found to
be elements. Inch by inch, step by step. Physical Science has marched
from its old prison in the dungeon of the Church towards its desired goal
 the verge of physical nature. It would not be too much to admit that
the verge has been almost reached, but that Edison's recent discoveries
of the telephone, the phonograph and the electric light, and Crookes's of
the existence and properties of Radiant Matter, seem to have pushed
farther away the chasm that separates the confessedly Knowable from the
fancied Unknowable. The recent advances of physical science tend to
mitigate somewhat the pride of our scientists. It is as though whole
domains previously undreamt of were suddenly exposed to view as each new
eminence of knowledge is gained, just as the traveller sees long reaches
of country to be traversed upon climbing to the crest of the mountain
that had been shutting him in within a narrow horizon. The fact is that,
whether regarded from her physical or dynamical side, Nature is a book
with an endless variety of subjects to be studied and mysteries to be
unravelled. And as regards Science, there is a thousand times more that
is Occult than familiar and easy to understand.

The realization of this fact, both as the result of personal enquiry and
of conversation with the learned, was one chief cause of the organization
of the Theosophical Society.

Now, it must be
agreed that, while the first necessity for the candid student
is to discover the depth and immensity of his own ignorance,
the
next is to find out where and how that ignorance may be dispelled.
We must first tit ourselves to become pupils and then look
about for a
teacher* Where, in what part of the world, can there be found
men capable of teaching us a part of the mystery that is
hidden behind the mask of
the world of matter? Who holds the secret of Life? Who knows
what Force is, and what causes it to bring around its countless,
eternal correlations
with the molecules of matter? What adept can unriddle for us
the problem how worlds are built and why? Can any one tell
us whence man came,
whither he goes, what he is? What is the secret of birth, of
sleep, of thought, of memory, of death? What is that Eternal,
Self-Existent
Principle, that by common consent is believed to be the source
of everything visible and invisible, and with which man claims
kinship? We,
little modern people, have been going about in search after this
teacher, with our toy lanterns in our hands as though it
were night instead of
bright day. The light of truth shines all the while, but we,
being blind, cannot see it. Does a new authority proclaim
himself, we ran from all
sides, but only see a common man with bandaged eyes, holding
a pretty
banner and blowing his own trumpet. "Come," he cries, "come, good people,
and listen to one who knows the laws of Nature. Follow my lead, join my
school, enter my church, buy my nostrum and you will be wise in this
world, and happy hereafter!" How many of these pretenders there have
been, how they have imposed for a while upon the world; what meannesses
and cruelties their devotees have done in their behalf; and bow their
shams and humbugs have ultimately been exposed, the pages of history
show. There is but one truth, and that is to be sought for in the
mystical world of man's interior nature, theosophically, and by the help
of the "Occult Sciences."

If history has preserved for as the record of multitudinous failures of
materialists to read the secret laws of Nature, it has also kept for our
instruction the stories of many successes gained by Theosophists in this
direction. There is no impenetrable mystery in Nature to the student who
knows how to interrogate her. If physical facts can be observed by the
eye of the body, so can spiritual laws be discovered by that interior
perception of ours which we call the eye of the spirit. This perceptive
power inheres in the nature of man; it is his godlike quality which makes
him superior to brutes. What we call seers the and prophets, and the
Buddhists know as rahats and Aryans as true sannyasis,
are only men who have emancipated their interior selves from
physical bondage
by meditation in secluded spots where the foulness of average
humanity could not taint them, and where they were nearest to
the threshold of
Nature's temple; and by the gradual and persistent conquest of
brutal desire after desire, taste after taste, weakness after
weakness, sense
after sense, they have moved forward to the ultimate victory
of spirit. Jesus is said to have gone thus apart to be tempted;
so did Mahomet who
spent one day in every month alone in a mountain cave; so did
Zoroaster, who emerged from the seclusion of his mountain retreat
only at the age of
40; so did Buddha, whose knowledge of the cause of pain and discovery
of the path to Nirvana, was obtained by solitary self-struggles
in desert
places. Turn over the leaves of the book of records and you will
find that every man, who really did penetrate the mysteries of
life and death,
got the truth in solitude and in a mighty travail of body and
spirit. These were all Theosophists  that is, original searchers
after spiritual
knowledge. What they did, what they achieved, any other man of
equal qualities may attain to. And this is the lesson taught
by the
Theosophical Society. As they spurned churches, revelations and
leaders, and wrested the secrets from the bosom of Nature, so
do we. Buddha said
that we should believe nothing upon authority, not even his own,
but believe because our reason told us the assertion was true.
He began by
striding over even the sacred Vedas because they were used to
prevent original theosophical research; castes he brushed aside
as selfish
monopolies. His desire was to fling wide open every door to the
sanctuary of Truth. We organized our Society  as the very first
section of our
original by-laws expresses it  "for the discovery of all the laws of
Nature, and the dissemination of knowledge of the same." The
known laws of Nature why should we busy ourselves with? The unknown,
or occult ones,
were to be our special province of research. No one in America,
none in Europe, now living, could help us, except in special
branches, such as
Magnetism, Crystal reading, Psychometry, and those most striking
phenomena of so-called mediumship, grouped together under the
generic name of modern spiritualism. Though the Vedas, the Puranas,
the Zend
Avesta, the Koran, and the Bible teemed with allusions to the
sayings and doings of wonder-working theosophists, we were told
by every one that the
power had long since died out, and the adepts vanished from the
sight of men. Did we mention the name Occult Science, the modern
biologist curled
his lip in fine scorn, and the lay fool gave way to senseless
witticisms.

It was a discouraging
prospect, no doubt; but in this, as in every other instance,
the difficulties were more imaginary than real. We had a
clue
given us to the right road by one who had spent a long lifetime
in travel, who had found the science to be still extant,
with its
proficients and masters still practising it as in ancient days.
The tidings were most encouraging, as are those of help and
succour to a
party of castaways on an unfriendly shore. We learned to recognize
the supreme value of the discoveries of Paracelsus, of Mesmer
and of Von
Reichenbach, as the stepping stones to the higher branches of
Occultism. We turned again to study them, and, the more we
studied, the clearer
insight did we get into the meaning of Asiatic myth and fable,
and the real object and methods of the ascetic theosophists
of all ages. The
words `body', `soul', `spirit', `Moksha' and `Nirvana', acquired
each a definite and comprehensible meaning. We could understand
what the Yogi
wished to express by his uniting himself with Brahma, and becoming
Brahma; why the biographer of Jesus made him say `I and the Father
are one'; how ankaracharya and others could display such
phenomenal learning
without having studied it in books, whence Zartushtra acquired
his profound spiritual illumination, and how the Lord akya
Muni, though but
a man "born in the purple," might nevertheless become All-Wise and
All-Powerful. Would my hearer learn this secret? Let him study Mesmerism
and master its methods until he can plunge his subject into so deep a
sleep that the body is made to seem dead, and the freed soul can be sent,
wheresoever he wills, about the Earth or among the stars. Then he will
see the separate reality of the body and its dweller. Or, let him read
Professor Denton's "Soul of Things", and test the boundless resources
of Psychometry; a strange yet simple science which enables us
to trace back
through the ages the history of any substance held in the sensitive
psychometer's hand. Thus a fragment of stone from Cicero's house,
or the Egyptian pyramids; or a bit of cloth from a mummy's shroud;
or a faded
parchment or letter or painting; or some garment or other article
worn by a historic personage; or a fragment of an aerolite 
give to the
psychometer impressions, sometimes amounting to visions surpassingly
vivid, of the building, monument, mummy, writer or painter, or
the long-dead personage, or the meteoric orbit from which the
last-named
object fell. This splendid science, for whose discovery in the
year 1840, the world is indebted to Professor Joseph K. Buchanan,
now a Fellow of
our Society, has but just begun to show its capabilities. But
already it
has shown us that in the Akasa, or Ether of science, are
preserved the records of every human experience, deed and word.
No matter how long
forgotten and gone by, they are still a record, and, according
to Buchanan's estimate, about four out of every ton persons have
in greater
or less degree the psychometrical power which can read those
imperishable pages of the Book of Life. Taken by itself either
Mesmerism, or
Psychometry, or Baron Reichenbach's theory of Odyle, or Odic
Force, is sufficiently wonderful. In Mesmerism a sensitive subject
is put by
magnetism into the magnetic sleep, during which his or her body
is insensible to pain, noises or any other disturbing influences.
The
Psychometer, on the contrary, does not sleep, but only sits or
lies passively, holds the letter, fragment of stone or other
object, in the
hand or against the centre of the forehead, and, without knowing
at all what it is or whence it came, describes what he or she
feels or sees. Of
the two methods of looking into the invisible world, Psychometry
is preferable, for it is not attended with the risks of the magnetic
slumber, arising from inexperience in the operator, or low physical
vitality in the somnambule. Baron Dupotet, M. Cahagnet, Professor
William
Gregory, and other authorities tell us of instances of this latter
sort in which the sleeper was with difficulty brought back to
earthly
consciousness, so transcendently beautiful were the scenes that
broke upon their spiritual vision. Reichenbach's discovery 
the result of
several years' experimental research with the most expensive
apparatus and a great variety of subjects, by one of the most
eminent chemists and.
physicists of modern times  was this. A hitherto unsuspected
force exists in Nature, having, like electricity and magnetism,
its positive
and negative poles. It pervades everything in the mineral, vegetable
and animal kingdoms. Our Earth is charged with it, it is in the
stars, and
there is a close interchange of polar influences between us and
all the heavenly bodies. Here I hold in my hand a specimen of
quartz crystal,
sent me from the Gastein Mountains in Europe by the Baroness
Von Vay. Before Reichenbach's discovery of the Odic Force  as
he calls it  this
would have had no special interest to the geologist, beyond its
being a curious example of imperfect crystallization. But now
it has a definite
value beyond this. If I pass the apex, or positive pole, over
the wrist and palm of a sensitive person  thus, he will feel
a sensation of
warmth, or cold, or the blowing of a thin, very thin pencil
of air over the skin. Some feel one thing, some another, according
to the Odic
condition of their own bodies. Speaking of this latter phenomenon,
viz., that the Odic polarity of our bodies is peculiar to ourselves,
different
from the bodies of each other, different in the right and left
sides, and different at night and morning in the same body, let
me ask you whether a
phenomenon long noticed, supposed by the ignorant to be miraculous,
and yet constantly denied by those who never saw it, may not
be classed as a
purely Odic one. I refer to the levitation of ascetics and saints,
or the rising into the air of their bodies at moments when they
were deeply
entranced. Baron Reichenbach found that the Odic sensibility
of his best patients greatly changed in health and disease. Professor
Perty, of
Geneva, and Dr. Justinus Kφrner tells us that the bodies of certain
hysterical patients rose into the air without visible cause, and floated
as light as a feather. During the Salem Witchcraft-horrors one of the
subjects, Margaret Rule, was similarly levitated. Mr. William Crookes
recently published a list of no less than forty Catholic ecstatics whose
levitation is regarded as proof of their peculiar sanctity. Now I myself,
in common with many other modern observers of psychological phenomena,
have seen a person, in the full enjoyment of consciousness, raised into
the air by a mere exercise of the will. This person was an Asiatic by
birth and had studied the occult sciences in Asia., and explains the
remarkable phenomenon as a simple example of change of corporeal
polarity. You all know the electrical law that oppositely electrified
bodies attract and similarly electrized ones repel each other. We say
that we stand upon the earth because of the force of gravitation, without
stopping to think how much of the explanation is a mere patter of words
conveying no accurate idea to the mind. Suppose we say that we cling to
the earth's surface, because the polarity of our body is opposed to the
polarity of the spot of earth upon which we stand. That would be
scientifically correct. But how, if our polarity is reversed, whether by
disease, or the mesmeric passes of a powerful magnetiser, or the constant
effort of a trained self-will. To classify:  suppose that we were either
a hysteric patient, an ecstatic, a somnambule, or an adept in Asiatic
Occult Science. In either case it the polarity of the body should be
changed to its opposite polarity, and so our electrical, magnetic or odic
state be made identical with that of the ground beneath us, the
long-known electropolaric law would assert itself and our body would rise
into the air. It would float as long as these mutual polaric differences
continued, and rise to a height exactly proportionate to their intensity.
So much of light is let into the old domain of Church "miracles" by
Mesmerism and the Od discovery.

But our mountain
crystal has another and far more striking peculiarity than
mere odic polarity. It is nothing apparently but a poor lump
of
glass, and yet in its heart can be seen strange mysteries. There
are doubtless a score of persons in this great audience,
who, if they would
sit in an easy posture and a quiet place, and gaze into my crystal
for a few minutes, would see and describe to me pictures
of people, scenes and
places in different countries as well as their own beautiful
Ceylon. I gave the crystal into the hand of a lady, who is
a natural clairvoyant,
just after I had received it from Hungary. "I see," she said, "a large,
handsome room in what appears to be a castle. Through an open window can
be seen a park with smooth-broad walks, trimmed lawns, and trees. A
noble-looking lady stands at a marble-topped table doing up something
into a parcel. A servant man in rich livery stands as though waiting for
his mistresses orders. It is this crystal that she is doing up, and she
puts it into a brown box, something like a small musical box." The
clairvoyant knew nothing about the crystal, but she had given
an accurate description of the sender, of her residence, and
of the box in which the
crystal came to me. How? Can any of the self conceited little
people, who say smart little nothings about the absurdity of
the Occult Sciences,
answer?

Reichenbach's careful
investigations prove that minerals have each their own peculiar
odic polarity, and this lets us into an understanding of
much that the Asiatic people have said about the magical properties
of gems. You have all heard of the regard in which the sapphire
has ever
been held for its supposed magical property to assist somnambulic
vision. "The sapphire," according to a Buddhist writer, "will
open barred doors and dwellings (for the spirit of man) ;
it produces a desire for prayer,
and brings with it more peace than any other gem; but he, who
would wear
it, must lead a pure and holy life."

Now a series of investigations by Amoretti into the electrical polarity
of precious stones (which we find reported in Kieser's Archia,
Vol. IV., p. 62) resulted in proving that the diamond, the garnet, the
amethyst, are E while the sapphire is +E. Orpheus tells how by mean a of
a load-stone a whole audience may be affected. Pythagoras, whose
knowledge was derived from India, pays a particular attention to the
colour and nature of precious stones; and Apollonius of Tyana, one of the
purest and grandest men who ever lived, accurately taught his disciples
the various occult properties of gems.

Thus does scientific
inquiry, agreeing with the researches of the greatest philosophers,
the experiences of religious ecstatics,
continually  though, as a rule, unintentionally  give us a
solid basis for studying Occultism. The more of physical
phenomena we observe and
classify, the more helped is the student of occult sciences and
of the ancient Asiatic sciences, philosophies and religion
The fact is, we,
modern Europeans, have been so blinded by the fumes of our own
conceit that we have not been able to look beyond our noses.
We have been
boasting of oar glorious enlightenment, our scientific discoveries,
our civilization, and our superiority to everybody with a
dark skin, and to
every nation, east of the Volga and the Red Sea or south of the
Mediterranean, until we have come almost to believe that the
world was built for the Anglo-Saxon race, and the stars to
make our bit of sky
pretty. We have even manufactured a religion to suit ourselves
out of Asiatic materials, and think it better than any religion
that was ever
heard of before. It is time that this childish vanity were done
away with. It is time that we should try to discover the
sources of modern
ideas; and compare what, we think, we know of the laws of Nature
with what the Asiatic people really did know, thousands of
years before Europe
was inhabited by our barbarian ancestors, or a European foot
was set upon the American continent. The crucibles of science
are heated red-hot and
we are melting in them everything out of which we think we can
get a fact. Suppose that, for a change, we approach the Eastern
people in a
less presumptuous spirit, and honestly confessing that we know
nothing at all of the beginning or end of Natural Law, ask
them to help us to find
out what their forefathers knew? This has been the policy of
the Theosophical Society, and it has yielded valuable results
already. Depend
upon it, ladies and gentlemen, there are still "wise men in the East," and
the Occult Sciences are better worth studying than has hitherto
been
popularly supposed.

(The lecture was loudly applauded and, at the close, a vote of thanks
was, upon the motion of Mr. James, Science Master in the Colombo College,
adopted.)